I was recently talking to a group of doctors and some of them were cribbing about how they do not have enough cash flow. For a layman this might come as a shock because they feel overcharged every time they step into a clinic…Here are the reasons some which the docs said, some mine:

1. Doctors start earning late: Absolutely no doubt about this! It takes a long time to do your MBBS, then you specialize further…well you are almost 32 by the time you start earning.

2. Doctors have a higher spending need: Doctors have to live like doctors, don’t they? So they spend more on clothes, car, the places they visit are expensive….so they have a lesser amount to save or invest.

3. Repaying educational loans: Not a very Indian concept, but people do borrow money to pay fees – and it has to be repaid.

4. Doctors are, well, for a better word, arrogant! Like all professionals they think ‘Investing / personal finance is easy, I do not need help. Well they are wrong. Their syllabus does not prepare them for anything in finance.

5. They are busy even when they start earning – they neglect their finances. (the fact that they neglect their own health is a matter of another story!)

6. They have no business sense – they do not know their costs, their variable costs, marginal costs, taxation, other revenues, etc. This puts them in a great stress – and largely have no clue about how to handle it.

7. They do not know how to sell their practice – running or otherwise!

Well there are many more reasons, some of which I have covered in my book for doctors. If you read carefully, most of these reasons come from a lack of knowledge of finance. Imagine asking doctors to attend a workshop on ‘Practice management’ or ‘Personal Finance’ – their immediate reaction is ‘We are not in it for money’ – well I think we are all in it for money, right?

If  99% of us work for money, how come only 1% of us make our money work for us?